Today’s featured artist, Brad Teare, is accomplished both at carving woodcuts and painting plein air oil paintings. In fact, all of his work is so good that I had a tough time deciding which side of his art to focus on.
After growing up in Kansas, Brad started on a whirlwind painting adventure that took him to northern Idaho, the Cascade Mountains, and Argentina. While improving his craft he fell in love with these magnificent landscapes, and upon his return to the states he enrolled at the University of Idaho to study art.
Although his professors were obsessed with abstract expressionism, Brad devoted his time to the realist tradition. One of his instructors even declared, “If you’re going to draw that way you might as well be an illustrator.” This was the spark that fueled Brad’s successful illustration career.
After a transfer to Utah State University to study his new focus, Brad finished his degree and headed to New York City. There he began a successful art career with publishers like The New York Times and Random House.
Brad’s early successes stemmed from his talent for creating multi-colored woodcut images, like the stunning image above.
Woodcut carving is a long and tedious process. Each image is made from many carved blocks, and each block is covered with a different colored ink—by hand of course. One illustration Brad described included over 2,000 block impressions.
During his time in New York, Brad’s love of the Western landscape never dwindled, and in 1994 he moved back to Utah to rekindle his love of painting.
Just six years ago he began painting en plein air, which, as Brad puts it, “fused his love of woodcuts with his love of the landscape.” His painting techniques express fabulous texture, color and light.
I highly encourage you to visit Brad’s website at BradTeare.com to view his woodcuts and paintings. For a special treat, check out the blog section of his website and peruse his many painting tutorials. He is an artist full of inspiration and talent.
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